Motorola taps into American patriotism to advertise the upcoming Moto X

There's no launch date for the Android handset just yet, but the advertising has begun.

As the summer days drone on, Motorola leaks more and more information about its forthcoming Android handset. The "superphone" was merely teased at last months' AllThingsDigital D11 conference, but it looks like Motorola has gone ahead and flipped the switch on its advertising campaign for the Moto X.

Ad Age posts that Motorola is heavily playing up the fact that the handset was designed and assembled in the US, with a photo of a happy couple enjoying typical American summer fun. You can check out the advertisement in its entirety up above, but it will also be published in tomorrow's editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal to coincide with the upcoming Independence Day holiday. Nothing says patriotism like an Android handset made in America.

In the ad you can see the company's new logo, which is a bit more colorful than its predecessor. Motorola also refers to itself as "A Google company," which should help establish the brand with consumers who may have missed the change in ownership.

This. I'm up for an upgrade on my phone, been using a Droid X2, and have been waiting to see if Motorola ever comes out with a new phone worth getting. Now to see if this one turns out to be any good...

Qwerty keyboard, biggest battery possible, a 4 inch screen and stock android are the only options I care about. If they let me pick those options in a "Dell/Gateway build your own pc" type of way, then I will bite. (Maybe waterproofing too).

If its just "pick your colors and screen size" then meh, I'm going back to a feature phone cause no company is offering me the kind of smartphone I want.

Only have had my Galaxy Nexus for 11 months and see no real reason to upgrade anytime soon.

Now my Moto Droid after 8 months, while the best thing at launch, did not age well at all unlike comparable iOS devices. 4.2 with all new features running at good speeds, the Nexus and most Android phones the past 12 months will age well. Apple had the leg up on mature software/hardware interaction for sure. Good to see Android catch up, if the manufacturer bothers to update your device.

Lets hope it is good. I'd also like to upgrade off of my Galaxy Nexus, but I'm holding out for a phone that has the same wow factor

I don't think you'll get much more than what the (already mature) market already offers. The S4 offers and advertises a lot that is supposed to show off its "wow factor", but a lot of it ends up looking gimmicky and goes unused by everyday users.

Some parts will be sourced from outside the US, but final construction will be in Texas.

I didn't mean I didn't believe it would be assembled in the United States. I meant I didn't believe it would be anything market-shaking. Remember the Google execs of not too long ago saying that their short-term pipeline had nothing interesting in it.

Me too! I'm curious to see whether or not the new Moto phones will be pure Android or have their skin on it.

Their phones have been running essentially the stock launcher since ICS. The only difference is that they added a quick settings menu, which google then added to their launcher in 4.2. Presumably their future phones will continue that trend.

Qwerty keyboard, biggest battery possible, a 4 inch screen and stock android are the only options I care about. If they let me pick those options in a "Dell/Gateway build your own pc" type of way, then I will bite. (Maybe waterproofing too).

If its just "pick your colors and screen size" then meh, I'm going back to a feature phone cause no company is offering me the kind of smartphone I want.

I feel for you; it's a pretty sad state of affairs, phone-selection-wise, for the person who really needs a physical keyboard and also wants something besides Low-End Models A and B. First world problems, sure, but it's the one feature I will or won't buy over.

Qwerty keyboard, biggest battery possible, a 4 inch screen and stock android are the only options I care about. If they let me pick those options in a "Dell/Gateway build your own pc" type of way, then I will bite. (Maybe waterproofing too).

If its just "pick your colors and screen size" then meh, I'm going back to a feature phone cause no company is offering me the kind of smartphone I want.

I feel for you; it's a pretty sad state of affairs, phone-selection-wise, for the person who really needs a physical keyboard and also wants something besides Low-End Models A and B. First world problems, sure, but it's the one feature I will or won't buy over.

These phones with "touch on lens" have virtual keyboards that don't suck. I'm on a z10, but there are Android phones with similar technology. The physical keyboards on Android phoned were never BlackBerry grade, so you are better off with the virtual keyboard.

Motorola is known to make garbage phones that die after one year of use. Lets see if Google changes that.

Now putting both brands together in the same logo makes it interesting. Google has a great brand and Motorola is a trash brand.

Its also strange that Google does not try to hide the fact anymore that owns a phone company. I guess other phones companies like Samsung can see them as a competitor now. No wonder they want to jump out of Android.

The factory in Fort Worth is a full end to end phone building factory. So ICs and similar type parts will come in and phones will come out.

The ICs will come from where they are built. Passives will be purchased in batches again sourced from wherever they are built. Plastics and boards will likely be manufactured in-house since the factory already did that for Nokia previously.

It's not like there aren't eletronics built in the US. Some ICs are built in the US, some are built in other places from Germany to South America to all over Asia.

With both Motorola and Apple bringing back part of their manufacturing to the United States this is good news. Hopefully the trend will continue, we still have a lot of people out of work. Great news as our Independence Day celebration approaches.

Qwerty keyboard, biggest battery possible, a 4 inch screen and stock android are the only options I care about. If they let me pick those options in a "Dell/Gateway build your own pc" type of way, then I will bite. (Maybe waterproofing too).

If its just "pick your colors and screen size" then meh, I'm going back to a feature phone cause no company is offering me the kind of smartphone I want.

I feel for you; it's a pretty sad state of affairs, phone-selection-wise, for the person who really needs a physical keyboard and also wants something besides Low-End Models A and B. First world problems, sure, but it's the one feature I will or won't buy over.

These phones with "touch on lens" have virtual keyboards that don't suck. I'm on a z10, but there are Android phones with similar technology. The physical keyboards on Android phoned were never BlackBerry grade, so you are better off with the virtual keyboard.

Yep, I have a G2 gathering dust.

I've used plenty of virtual keyboards on android phones (and iphones too) and I just don't like them. for one thing, the virtual keyboard takes up way to much of the screen, especially in landscape which I prefer to use (typing this in landscape on my droid 4). I don't need it to be "blackberry grade" as I am perfectly happy with the qwerty kb on my droid 4. Its a feature that I want and I won't buy a phone that lacks it. Smartphone is a luxury item, I can live without it, and will if I can't buy what I want.

Its great that you think you know what others are better off with though......

I'll believe it when I see it. So far, the only made-in-U.S.A. devices have been either zero-quantity (that weird Google globe thingy) or low-quantity (the new Macintosh Pro).

It will be interesting to see how many of the new Mac Pros Apple does sell. Many pros are put off by the added expense of all external expansion, especially when they are coming from the current Mac Pro with it's 4 internal disc capacity and internal PCIe slots. Just to move that stuff over to Thunderbolt will be quite an expense so the new Mac Pro had better be fairly inexpensive. Well, we will know later this year.

All this assembled in the us bullshit can take a hike but the ad looks cool. The whole terminator look of Motorola got tiresome.

Where do you live? And why do you consider it bullshit?

I live in Canada. But I oppose propaganda like that because it is a clear show of weakness. You should buy something made in the US because its better/cheaper than something made in China not because you feel some patriotic duty doing it. Never works out in the end. Its a global world and you need to stay competitive based on price/quality. Patriotism is a shitty way of doing business and one step away from 5 year plans and we all know how that ended.

I wonder how it will sell outside of the US, given the current popularity low of 'merica in the world.

Well, as a Canadian I can say being made anywhere in the western world is good, as that means it's not being built somewhere in the 3rd world where people at taking advantage of the lack of labour laws. There's a lot more concern over this issue recently because of the building collapse in Bangladesh that killed over 1000 people. Sure, it was a different industry, it being a garment-factory but it's an issue people seemed to be more sensitive to because of the news.

Also I'm guessing that this will be mainly for North America models and that other models might be built elsewhere?

If these new phones are really customizable including the specs, I imagine it would only make sense for it to be built somewhere close by. Being built in China would mean a longer delay from when it's built to getting it into the consumer's hands.

With both Motorola and Apple bringing back part of their manufacturing to the United States this is good news. Hopefully the trend will continue, we still have a lot of people out of work. Great news as our Independence Day celebration approaches.

High tech manufacturing in the US is largely automated. Very few people actually work in these kinds of jobs, and they tend to be engineers who would have relatively little trouble finding work anyway.

Having thousands of people assembling ipads at $2 a day only makes sense because you can pay them so little. As salaries rise in the developing word, fewer and fewer people will be employed doing crappy jobs like this that can be easily automated. Moving factories like this to the US has little to do with patriotism, and more to do with simplifying supply changes and reducing lead times and transport costs.

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.